Probing the toxic interactions between polyvinyl chloride microplastics and Human Serum Albumin by multispectroscopic techniques

In this study, the interaction of emerging pollutant polyvinyl chloride microplastics (PVC MPs) and human serum albumin (HSA) was investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy, UV-visible (UV-vis) absorption spectroscopy, circular dichroism (CD), and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy under simulated physiological conditions. Fluorescence results showed that PVC MPs (about 5000 nm in size) can effectively quench the intrinsic fluorescence of HSA through static quenching owing to the formation of HSA-PVC complex. The binding constants (Ka) between PVC and HSA at different temperatures were calculated as 4.97 × 103 M-1, 3.46 × 103 M-1 and 2.51 × 103 M-1, respectively. The number of binding sites was 1.26. The enthalpy change (ΔH), entropy change (ΔS) and free energy change (ΔG) were calculated to be -59.27 kJ·mol-1, 70.76 J·mol-1 K-1 and - 80.35 kJ·mol-1, respectively, indicating that the interaction of PVC with HSA was mainly driven by electrostatic forces. Moreover, results of UV-vis, FT-IR and CD further demonstrated that the microenvironment and secondary structure of HSA were changed a lot induced by PVC, leading to a decrease in α-helix. This work not only provides an insight into the intermolecular interaction between PVC and HSA, but also elucidates the potential biological toxicity of MPs at a molecular level.